


Retirement

by smallerluke



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Domestic Fluff, M/M, r76valentines exchange
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-21
Updated: 2018-02-21
Packaged: 2019-03-22 01:54:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,120
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13753797
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smallerluke/pseuds/smallerluke
Summary: Sometimes the happiest endings are the simplest ones.





	Retirement

**Author's Note:**

> my valentine for tactical-necessity! ♥

When Jack wakes, it is with no sense of urgency.

The house is quiet and still save for Gabriel's soft, deep breaths. There's warmth all around him; two legs wrapped around his waist, a hand curled into the front of his t-shirt. Jack reaches up for his husband’s hand, runs his fingers slowly, absent-mindedly, over his scarred knuckles. He doesn't stir. Still asleep, then. Gabriel has earned his rest, and Jack won't take it from him, not when sleep can be so rare for the both of them. 

He never sleeps long past dawn. Hard to shake old habits, even out here with no clocks in the house and no schedules to keep to. 

Slowly, reluctantly, he cracks open an eye. 

He doesn’t want to wake Gabriel, which is a tall order when his husband is wrapped around him. Jack twists enough to face him and rests back on the pillow with a sigh. The sun slips across Gabriel’s warm brown skin. Jack follows the beam of light with a touch, smoothing over his bicep. His face is peaceful, his body relaxed. Good dreams, then, or none at all. Jack’s chest aches as he gazes at his husband, the love of his life, the one man he’d go to hell and back for. He has a lot left to prove, and it starts here, in the small hours of the morning. Jack leans in to kiss his forehead, gentle enough not to wake him, and rolls away.

There's a dog staring at him from the edge of the bed. Jack sighs, stretches out a hand to rub his muzzle. King never leaves their side, hasn’t since Gabriel had rescued him on their way to the remote cabin. The other dogs sleep in the living room on the couch, but Jack knows once he starts the burner they’ll all mass at his feet. Smiling, he pulls himself out of bed, takes one last glance at his husband— _ God,  _ he’s gorgeous, handsome as ever with gray flecking his beard and lining his temples—and leaves the bedroom, stepping lightly to keep quiet.

The cabin is small and the kitchen is cramped with the two of them, let alone a man and four dogs. Jack leans down to greet their rescues with chin scratches and, in Oscar’s case, a belly rub. He puts them out before starting on breakfast, knowing full well that trying to cook with them around will just result in him feeding them half of his food. He fetches eggs out of the fridge, fresh baked bread from the cupboard, and sets a frying pan on the stove. Gabriel’s favorite breakfast is simple: two fried eggs over easy, a little bit of salt and pepper, two pieces of avocado toast, three slices of bacon. 

Making Gabriel breakfast is a new tradition, one he doesn’t take lightly. After years on the run without access to a proper kitchen he was certainly out of practice, but after a month of settling in? He might say he’s pretty good at it. Gabriel rarely complains, which is all the proof he needs.

Quiet mornings like this are worth the isolation. Sometimes he sits on the back deck with the dogs and just watches the sunrise, Gabriel’s head in his lap. Sometimes they stay in bed and make love bathed in sunlight. Time is a faraway concept out here. Now they have their little cabin in California, now they have fake IDs and no one to bother them, no battles to fight. It’s just the two of them and a coop of chickens and the mountains rising in the distance, like a barrier from the rest of the world.

It’s a well earned break. Old wounds will heal with every passing day. Everything they’ve done, all the shit they’ve been through, they’ve been through  _ together _ . Time apart had ruined them. Second chances like this are rare, and Jack won’t take it for granted, not like he’d taken his husband for granted before.

He flips the eggs without thinking and curses his mistake. Not that Gabriel will mind, so long as they’re not burned. The bacon looks good, so he sets to work on the avocado toast, one eye on the screen door, watching the dogs curl up on the deck. 

A soft rustle steals his attention. Gabriel is moving on the bed, curling up to shield his face from the morning light. His hair is a mess and there’s crusts in his eyes but Jack fights to breathe, struck again by how much he loves his husband. When a warm brown eye cracks open, Jack flashes him a smile and gathers up breakfast. 

“Perfect timing, angel.”

Gabriel just lets out a sigh, closing his eyes again. “Not awake yet.”

He sets the plate down on the nightstand and walks out to let the dogs in. Jack picks up Oscar, the smallest of the rescues, a wiry-haired terrier, who lets out an appreciative yap. With King, Ginger, and Marlow on his heels he returns to the bedroom. Gabriel is propped up now and starting on his toast. Jack plops down beside him, Oscar settling into his lap with a grunt.

“Verdict?”

“Not half bad.” Gabriel talks through a mouthful, smiles when he chases it with fresh coffee. “You do something different with the eggs?”

“Wasn’t feeling adventurous today.”

“Tried and true is fine.”

Jack chuckles. “I make you breakfast in bed every morning. Guess that’s  _ fine. _ ”

“Your choice.”

“I do love spoiling my husband.” Jack leans over to kiss Gabriel’s grayed temple. He lets out an unimpressed grunt, fork and knife clattering on the plate.

“I’m trying to eat here.”

“Lots of time for that.”

Gabriel turns in to him, catches him with the full force of those big brown eyes, and Jack all but melts. His  _ husband, _ the love of his life, his other half, take your pick of the cliches, none of them could ever do justice to how he felt about this man. To how his chest ached just looking at him, how his heart would still speed up at the slightest touch, just like it had when they first met and those touches were rare. 

“Yeah,” Gabriel sighs, “Got all the time in the world for once.”

King jumps on the end of the bed and nestles in on Gabriel’s legs before he finishes breakfast.  _ Trapped _ , Gabriel jokes, but the two settle in anyway. Oscar curls up between them so they lay with their hands wound together, silent, just breathing in the morning.

Maybe it’s not the ending either of them had pictured, but in the end, Jack doesn’t care where he goes, so long as Gabriel is ever at his side. 


End file.
